‘UK govt does not know where it stands when it comes to opposition to Assad’

The British government’s policy is creating an environment where a large number of Muslim youth travels to Syria, wreaking havoc and destruction, the chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, Massoud Shadjareh, told RT.

Shadjareh says this is
similar to the situation in Afghanistan. "Although the
training, support, financing of jihadists even in Afghanistan was
done by the West and its allies like Saudis, at the end of the
day [blame was laid] on the ordinary mosque [as if it were
Muslims from mosques] in London and elsewhere which were the
cause of this," he told RT.

RT:Jihadists from the UK fighting in Syria
faking their deaths in combat to return home undetected. How does
that work?

Massoud Shadjareh: These accusations that they
are faking death so that they could come back… I’m not sure to
what extent this is actually just a rumor or something that
actually is a sort of methodology that actually works or doesn’t
work, because the reality is that for them to come back into the
UK, they need documentation and this documentation is going to
identify them one way or the other. But I think it’s a much
bigger story. The fact that why we are in the current situation,
I believe is the misguided policy of the British government,
which actually has created this problem. Now the British
government is trying to blame it on the Muslim community, and I
think this is the real story. The fact that it is a disarray of
British foreign policy in trying to support the opposition to
Assad to start with, and creating this environment where a large
number of Muslim youth is going all the way to Syria.

RT:The UK government has supported Syria's
rebels. So why is it upset that British citizens are heading to
Syria to fight alongside the Assad opposition?

MS: It was only last week for the first time
that the British government identified ISIS as a terrorist
organization. Prior to that, the only thing we heard in the media
in the West and from the British government was that those are
rebels, and that’s the worst that has been said about them. But,
at the same time, youth from Muslim backgrounds would be arrested
for association with them as terrorists. I think the reality is
that the British government does not know where it stands when it
comes to opposition to Assad, and encourages people to get
involved. The reality is that’s why we are seeing quite a number
of people going to fight inside of Syria and they don’t go
anywhere else; they aren’t going to Palestine or Kashmir or
Myanmar or anywhere else where there is this sort of conflict, or
indeed Central Africa. This is really a result of British
government policy and their allies like Saudi Arabia. This is
something that they have been collectively involved in supporting
from day one, and indeed, from day one, many of us felt that this
policy is going to backfire and create the havoc that it has
created, the death and destruction, and indeed it will undermine
the real empowerment of the ordinary people in Syria.

RT:How much of a threat to Britain are
these returning radicalized jihadist fighters?

MS: I’m not sure about how big a threat they
will be. Indeed, when you have people who get used to behaving in
such a way of opening people’s hearts and eating them, shouting
“God is great!”… this really is an abomination not just
from a Muslim prospective, but to t humanity. You have people
like that in any society and this is dangerous. Again, you are
thinking what damage they could cause to people in Britain. They
are already causing huge damage in Syria and in Iraq and
elsewhere; they are really undermining civil society and they are
creating havoc. We should be more concerned with that and that
should be a question of whether it is British foreign policy that
is promoting this. And indeed the policy of governments like
Saudi Arabia, which are funding and promoting this as partners
with the British government and the US.

RT:How do people in Europe get
radicalized?

MS: What is happening within certain circles of
the Muslim community is we have certain religious leaders coming
from Saudi Arabia to the UK and they will be going around and
promoting that this is an important struggle, which British
Muslims should get involved in. The government as a whole has
been promoting this. We were in a similar position at the time of
Afghanistan. The West got involved in promoting jihadists, and
the reality is that it backfired. Here we have a similar
situation. And again similarly, although the training, support,
financing of jihadists even in Afghanistan was done by the West
and its allies like Saudis, at the end of the day [blame was
laid] on the ordinary mosque [as if it were Muslims from mosques]
in London and elsewhere which were a cause of this. The reality
is that those who get involved in getting into the jet planes or
in tanks and going around blowing people up, they are not getting
this sort of skills in the mosque. Those skills come from Western
sort of allies who are sending trainers and training people. A
mosque in Wales or elsewhere cannot be blamed for that. What we
are seeing is the result of the bankrupt foreign policy, and now
we are blaming it on the Muslim community which is as
unacceptable. We don’t accept the concept of going cutting
people's throats, crucifying the Christians and opening the
hearts of Muslims and eating them. These are barbaric acts which
no human being could endorse.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.